Maggie Gyllenhaal and husband Peter Sarsgaard are anxiously awaiting the arrival of their second child. Though they aren’t sharing the news, the parents of 5-year-old daughter Ramona already know if she’ll soon have a little brother or sister!

“It’s the nice thing about knowing the gender of the child,” Peter Sarsgaard said recently. “You don’t have to call it ‘it,’ which gets really weird after seven months in. So we’ve been trying out a few names, but nothing solid.”

The pair, who wed in 2009, are trying not to get too worked up over how Ramona will feel when baby two finally arrives. “I’ve seen kids with siblings – I don’t have any siblings, so I don’t know – but they generally go for about 5 minutes, ‘Oh, cool! Anyways, what are we going to do now? Can we return it?” Sarsgaard said, joking that Ramona “doesn’t know what she’s in for.”

“I think it gets boring quickly, at first, and it takes a while for them to bond,” he added.

I’m inclined to agree with Peter Sarsgaard on this one. While pregnant with my second baby I had such a strong mixture of feelings and worry (thanks, hormones) about how my first son would feel with a newborn in the house. Turns out, at 20-months-old, he didn’t much care.

Sure, he noticed the baby was there, but I underestimated a young child’s ability to simply accept that something just “is.” There was no baby — and now there is. End of story…or at least in my case it was. Perhaps if my two had been farther apart in age, as Peter Sarsgaard and Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s children will be, it would have been different?

Did (or do) you worry about how your first child would feel about a sibling?

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7 Responses to Maggie Gyllenhaal: Is big sis ready for baby?

LACEsays:

February 9, 2012 at 2:05 pm

I didn’t worry. My first was 16 months old when her sister was born. She never got bored of her. Ever. 4 years later, they are inseparable. Same goes for when #3 was born. My older two were obsessed with their sister. They are really good about letting her play with them too. They treat her like another 4 or 5 year old, not a 1 year old.

This time I expect them to react differently, because they are getting a brother. They are already crazy about him, I can just imagine the kisses he’ll be covered in when he arrives.

Jessica Bsays:

February 9, 2012 at 2:11 pm

While pregnant with #2, I did worry about how my daughter would feel about having her space invaded, but then I remembered that I am the oldest of 3 close in age siblings. I have absolutely no memory of any time I had my parents all to myself. All of my memories include my siblings, so it made me feel better to know that my daughter wouldn’t remember her time alone either. As you put it, it just “is.”

Emilysays:

February 9, 2012 at 3:41 pm

I’m pregnant with my second child, due in about six weeks and I have a three-year-old son. We think he will be just fine in the sense that we doubt he will have jealousy issues. I just plan on involving him with the baby as much as I can, and emphasizing what a big boy he is, that he can do certain things as a big kid that a baby can’t do. I think it will be fine; I don’t much worry about problems.

mamaof2says:

February 9, 2012 at 7:07 pm

I was totally afraid. #1 and #2 are 3.5 years apart. I found that what was helpful was that my daughter was starting preschool around the time I brought home the baby and that really made her have her own special thing going on. We also made special alone time for her with my parents and with us (although more alone time was had with her my hubby since I was BF and my little guy was very finicky and attached to mama). It all worked out wonderfully, but we were very conscious to try and keep jealousy at bay.

I truly think it depends on the kid. I was #2 exactly 18 months younger than my older sister and she was mothering me from the day I was born. She wouldn’t my mom do ANYTHING without helping. She held me, changed diapers (at least she tried), and referred to me as HER baby always. We were very close growing up. My niece was the same with her younger brother and even now at 9 and 5 she still is so sweet and gentle with him most of the time and she kisses his head constantly when he isn’t paying attention. I worry a little because my daughter is such an attention hog but I know she’ll catch on. She’s a great little mother just not as baby hungry as some other kids might be.

CARRIE Hsays:

February 9, 2012 at 7:42 pm

I worried like crazy that my 2 1/2 year old son would be a mess when his brother arrived. He is super attached to me and I was afraid that he would feel hurt or neglected when the baby came. It was pretty much like you said……I underestimated him. He adores his brother. I on the other hand have had a hard time adjusting. While I love my wee one very much I still feel guilty that I have to split my attention so much. Turns out I am just as attached to my oldest and I still miss having so much one on one time with him.

Sara McGinnissays:

February 9, 2012 at 8:12 pm

Awww, I feel you Carrie!

I had forgotten to write about how *I* felt, not just how my first son felt. I will tell you that it took me much longer to bond with my second son — to put it bluntly it was ROUGH. My younger one is now 5, and though it took me a very long time to get there, I’ve come to the realization that I love them differently. Both very much, but “equally” doesn’t quite describe it.

I don’t have a link, but here’s a section of a post I once wrote about the realization that it’s ok to feel differently about the two of them. I won’t presume your and my feelings are identical, but I do feel motivated to share something that really helped me — and has made appreciating the relationship I have with each of them easier. Hope it might help you a bit!

To say that I felt differently towards my children as babies is a bit of an understatement. One experience was filled to the brim with love and bonding, while the other left us on the brink of exhaustion, pleased to have simply survived another day, expectations of baby bonding long ago discarded.

To this day I still feel differently about my children. The easy baby, now 6-years-old, continues to be a joy. Being his mother means graciously accepting praise from his kindergarten teacher and marveling
as he grows into his own real life person. We continue to share a smooth and steady road of love.

The other one, now 4-years-old, remains composed of pep and vinegar. Every day is a roller coaster of ups, downs, twists, and turns. Yet while the lows remain aggravatingly tough, I have come to find that
the highs have their own addicting sense of intensity. He and I can be found vibrating with anger at each other one moment, and on the peaks of love in another. Looking into his smiling eyes makes my heart surge in a way I’ve never experienced with his brother.

Over the years I’ve felt a good deal of guilt for the evolving ways my feelings have changed. Guilt in the early years for not having bonded with my difficult baby, and then guilt later over not sharing the same intensity of a bond with my older son.

I’m left realizing that the fallacy is not in fretting over unequal love, but in the expectation that they ever should have been the same. Recognizing the boys as two separate people instead of a set of brothers allows my love for them to each flourish, unfettered and natural.

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